Making ferrofluid

Utterly awesome video, in the event I don’t win the giveaway I’m certain I would purchase one of those sweet vials

Did you try to add the soap before the addition of the ammonia ? The idea behind this is that the magnetite particles are coated as soon as they form, resulting in smaller particles.

Dominik Wondrousch

I so badly want to do/see someone do some calligraphy or high end ink drawing with your ferrofluid. The fact that you showed us how the commercially available stuff did compared makes it worse. I can't even hope to buy some that would compare. Knowing I won't be able to experience this myself as an artist making me a little sad. I think a print with a costume Halbach array magnet would be amazing.

Can you recreate some of these visuals? https://vimeo.com/28304264

Anapan

Something you can to to help prevent oxygen contamination is to add an argon blanket on top of your reaction. It is heavy enough that if you feed in a few CFH on your container the blanket would be maintained.

Casey Kikendall

Great video! I made nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) particles a few years ago in grad school for an experiment, and now I'm in nostalgia mode and tempted to see if I can dig up the procedure I used. I made mine in an anaerobic glove box that I begged a microbiology group for access to. Then I begged some electron microscope time from another group and got to take some sweet SEM pictures to validate the "nano" size of my particles! The proof-of-concept experiment (nZVI reduction of something... perchlorate maybe) ended up working but my advisor thought it was a dead end/not sexy, so it languished with my other pet projects and I didn't end up doing enough follow up work to get a paper out of it.

Isaac Roll

Have you tried putting it on a hotplate and turning on the stirring?

Frostbite

I like the length! If, some day in the distant future, you were to make and sell those little bottles I'd absolutely buy one

This is awesome! Given the apparent lack of proper documentation for this process, have you thought about trying to publish your results in a paper or something?

omg I should have waited till you announced the giveaway. I am totally entering this contest. thank you for making this possible man

Arthur Wesley

I want some sort of container I can put on my bedside table that has the ferrofluid in water demonstration. it seems like it would be extremly fun to play with

Arthur Wesley

You my best master, have accomplished something great! This may be what you become an internet celebrity for ...

Emil Almberg

Why didn´t you use an inert atmosphere such as Argon or Nitrogen? Anyway the results are impressive! Thanks for the "long" video!

I have to ask... How did you get the ferrofluid off of the magnets you poured it onto? Or, did you not bother trying to recover it?

No idea. But ideal ferrofluids are supposed to be around 10nm

Nile Red

This was so satisfying! Finally the conclusion I was waiting on :D I also think that idea of making art with it is super interesting. I wonder if tiny/sharp magnets could also be used almost like markers?

Nik

Do you have any idea of the range of particle sizes?

Kevin Martin

Much of the crap left after dissolving the steel wool could be carbon or iron carbide. Also perhaps surface oils from making the wool.

Kevin Martin

Very cool to see you get this to work.

Daniel Blake Shoemaker

Loved the video! I really do enjoy longer videos since you still fill the whole video with interesting and useful info. Kuddos to you for putting in the research to actually figure out how to make it properly too.

When you dissolve the steel wool to make Fe2+ it seems that there's a time-lapse. If that's correct, can you do like you do with the ammonia and add "16x" or whatever the factor is? And if not, "real-time" or "1x" might be handy too, perhaps.

Max Goldstein

What would happen if you had a magnet on a drill parallel to the fluid and spun it?

PseudsPie

Excellent work! It's wonderful to finally have a proper synthesis for something as popular as ferrofluid!

Gabriel J.

I agree the long videos are the best!

technoman9000

There will be a cleanup video for this one? Discarding the crappy fluids, and cleaning all the mess produced?

This is absolutely amazing. I love this content and I hope you make more like it. Have you considered selling it? I would pay good money for one of those large bottles.

Ethan

Nice! Congrats. Really exciting

parcel_ch

I keep thinking of many ways to experiment with the process. What about other liquids instead of kerosene? Something non-volatile perhaps. Esters come to mind, dibutyl phtalate maybe? Or even biodiesel-type esters. What about other acids? Oleic acid is unsaturated, it will oxidize when exposed to air. Saturated acids? Perhaps short chain ones (caprylic)? As for preventing oxidation during magnetite production, it could be done under argon.

Silviu T

...and no, it's not too long. I prefer the longer videos, even if they're less frequent.

Silviu T

Very well done, and the result is great. Instead of a stir rod, would it work with a sonicator? It could possibly simplify the procedure, and get more consistent results (particle size etc).

Silviu T

Awesome work! Do you think the oleic acid coating would work for zinc oxide particles?

Joshua Pedrick